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Aloha, my name is Charles Akimoto and this is my Pecha Kucha for the history of graphic
design in Hawai'i.
Compared to most of the world, Hawai'i is a young place. It was settled between 300
and 700 CE. Now, the early Hawaiians did not have an alphabet. Instead, they used chants,
dance, and legends. Unfortunately due to its oral nature, a lot of the ancient history
disappeared after the deaths of the kahunas or priests.
Around 700 CE, Hawaiians started to communicate using petroglyphs or ki'i pōhaku, (ki'i which
means image and pōhaku, which means stone). The petroglyphs served as the earliest written
forms of communication with the gods, the spirits, travelers, and other islanders. The
petroglyphs feature images of man, man-made objects, such as canoes, paddles, sails, and
fishhooks, and circles and dots representing ceremonies.
Another practice of ancient Hawaii was tattoo or kakau. Tattoos were spiritually and socially
important. The rituals were considered sacred, and only kahunas and certain elders could
apply them. These tattoos indicated social hierarchy as well as protected their wearers
from negative forces. Some were even believed to possess powers of their own.
Many ancient Hawaiian tattoo designs featured patterns of geometric or natural shapes such
as squares, triangles, crescents or waves. Tattoos also commonly showed 'aumakua or family
protector gods such as the shark, mano or the lizard, mo'o. Some also represented legends,
had hidden meanings, or celebrated dead family members.
Moving on, I'm going to talk about Kapa which is Hawaiian barkcloth. Now while many Pacific
Islands produced tapa, Hawaiians developed techniques, such as the watermark produced
during the final stage of beating. Kapa was generally made from the white inner bark of
the wauke or paper mulberry tree.
It was mainly used for clothes such as the malo or men's loincloth and the pāʻū or
women's wraparound. Now what you see here is 'ohe kapala or bamboo stamp. There are
many designs but a lot are straight lines with geometric shapes. A few had carved parts
made of turtle shell and were tied onto the handle.
Some designs were interpretations of the things that Hawaiians were accustomed to seeing normally
such as bird feathers, fish bones, and sharks teeth. As you can see here, the 'ohe kapala
was dipped into dyes made from natural materials such as berries, nuts, ash, coconut, and clay
and then pressed onto the kapa in repeating patterns. They were so versatile that one single
design could be used in many ways and Hawaiian artists even utilized positive and negative
space.
Now, I'm going to come back to kapa design later, but I want to move onto kapa moe or
bed covers. These was reserved for aliʻi or chiefs. Several layers of kapa would be
stitched together at the edges to form a kapa moe. This one was made for Princess Ka'iulani.
The tradition continued into the late nineteenth century with members of the Hawaiian monarchy.
I'm going to move onto Western contact. In 1788, Captain James Cook arrived in the Hawaiian
Islands. Only 33 years later in 1821, missionaries began to arrive, and with them, their wives
brought quilting to Hawai'i. These early missionaries taught quilting to Hawaiian women, who adapted
them into a uniquely Hawaiian form.
Quilt designs are often drawn from nature, and silhouettes of plants are very popular.
These quilts are influenced by kapa. The pattern of the stitches is compared to the watermark
left after it's beaten, and the design mimics the painted and stamped design from the 'ohe
kapala. As you can see, the designs are very symmetrical to form a snowflake pattern.
I also wanted to touch on the Aloha Shirt. Yes, we call it the Aloha Shirt and not the
Hawaiian Shirt. Although they may seem kitschy, they are part of Hawai'i's history. The first
Aloha Shirt was sold in 1904 at "Musashi-ya shoten" in Honolulu by Japanese immigrant
Chōtarō Miyamoto. These brightly colored short-sleeved shirts were worn by plantation
workers and called Palaka shirts.
However the modern Aloha shirt was made in the early 1930s by a Chinese merchant Ellery
Chun of King-Smith Clothiers and Dry Goods in Waikiki. He made them for tourists using
old leftover kimono fabrics. The first advertisement for Chun's Aloha shirt was published on June
28, 1935 and local residents and tourists bought every shirt he had.
Within years, manufacturers sprung up all over Hawai'i making and selling Aloha shirts.
In 1956 Alfred Sheehan, revolutionized the garment industry by designing, printing and
producing Aloha shirts under one roof. While Aloha shirts of the time were tacky souvenirs
for visitors he raised it to high fashion with artistic prints, high-grade materials
and quality construction.
I'm going to finish off my talk by bringing the subject back to kapa with designer Sig
Zane from Hilo, Hawaii. Sig is mainly a clothing designer, but uses kapa prints as well as
images of native Hawaiian plants. Tying this ancient art form to the modern world, I am
going to show you a video from Hawaiian Airlines, who asked Sig to design the livery for their
new airline, 'Ohana by Hawaiian.
Aloha, I'm Sig Zane and I live in Hilo. I'm a artist, textile designer, graphic designer.
In decorating kapa, the Hawaiians found out that the bamboo stramps, 'ohe kapala, was
the best tool.
Kapa is the bark cloth made from the wauke tree and that was our basic loin cloth, you
know, that was what we wore, but to decorate the kapa you would take the 'ohe kapala or
bamboo stamps and that's what you would stamp onto the kapa so that you would have your
storyline, per se.
There are three elements that we really wanted to instill in this, and we chose the
cordage, or the twisting of the ti leaf as that image we wanted to portray, because
it symbolized also the umbilical cord and that umbilical cord to the piko is,
how we identify who we are, where we came from, and who our families are.
I like the idea of manu because of the flight, or the idea that this is for
a plane right, its either shaped like this or like this that that the bird will
make. Well we chose this shape as a bird that is flapping its wings, but also this
shape is also manu, the front of the canoe, and that is also the leading point as far
as when humans migrate, or when we migrated from Tahiti over to Hawai'i.
I decided that the kalo was going to represent one of the more important elements of this
ka huakai welo, so I choose the actual leaf pattern, the shape of it and I gave it
a stem to create an actual taro leaf, and that is the one that is most literal.
Mahalo Nui Loa, Thank you for listening to my Pecha Kucha
If you are interested in Sig Zane's design of 'Ohana by Hawaiian, I urge you to check
out their website for more information. The website also features the full video that
you have just seen as I had to cut down the original to fit my presentation. Again, mahalo
nui loa.
Again, Mahalo Nui Loa